A gut-wrenching loss to the Atlanta Falcons may signal a season-ending collapse, according to ESPN's Damien Woody. Can the Buccaneers rebound in the NFC South race?
Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Todd Bowles will find his head coach seat getting hotter if the Bucs don't win the NFC South.
One ESPN analyst isn't feeling great about the team's -- or Bowles' -- chances.
This reaction comes on the heels of Tampa's 29-28 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, who came into Thursday night's game at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa 4-9 and realistically out of playoff contention.
The Falcons faced a third-and-28 and a fourth-and-14th on their last possession, and still managed to win it on a walk-off field goal.
For ESPN's Damien Woody, this upset could ruin the Bucs' season.
"This is a brutal loss by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers," Woody said to Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter after the game. Woody noted Tampa's 14-point lead and the Falcons' 19 penalties, which cost them 125 yards. "You don't see teams win games like that.
"When you lose a game like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, what I've seen through my career, teams don't recover from that. They just don't."
Tampa Bay lost in similar, embarrassing fashion to another NFC South rival, the New Orleans Saints (3-10), at home in Week 14.
The Buccaneers, competing in the NFL's perennially worst division, are a half-game out of first, with their hopes of making the playoffs still alive.
"That's the beauty of how the NFL has scheduled these games down the stretch -- they've backloaded all the divisional games at the end of the season," Woody said. "[They] have an opportunity to get in, but it is dire right now for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers."
Nobody understands Tampa's situation better than Bowles, who held nothing back in his post-Atlanta presser.
"We don't make excuses," he said. "[We] gotta *expletive* care enough to where the *expletive* hurts. It's gotta *expletive* mean something to you. It's more than a job. It's your *expletive* livelihood. How well do you know your job? How well can you do your job? We can't sugarcoat that *expletive.* It's in-*expletive*-excusable, and there no *expletive* answer for it. No excuse for it, and that's what you tell them in the locker room. Look in the *expletive* mirror."
Having Mike Evans and the rest of their stud receiving corps healthy and on the field helps keep the Bucs the favorite to win the NFC South, with ESPN giving it a 55-percent chance to take the division title over the Panthers (45 percent). The two teams will meet next Sunday, Dec. 20, in Carolina, with a Wild Card berth on the line.